A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang with Annotations (洛陽伽藍記校注)

6. Evaluation of the Luoyang Qielan Ji (Part 2)

Furthermore, considering the literary value of this book alone, we have already said that the book itself is a kind of historical literature and can be counted as a first-rate literary work. Now we might as well read it as a travel novel, or as a feature story or reportage. In the last years of the Northern Wei, the author revisited the battered and broken Luoyang after the turmoil. What first drew his memory and attention were the many magnificent Buddhist monasteries and pagodas of earlier times. He traveled throughout the city—inside the city walls and in the east, west, south, and north of the city—reaching all five quarters, gathering what he saw and heard, and writing it into five volumes. Since he took Buddhist monasteries and pagodas as the center and made them stand out as the focus, and also often used annotation and retrospective methods, he kept readers from realizing he was writing a travel record. When he searched out Buddhist monasteries and pagodas, not one in ten remained. As he mourned over the traces left behind, he was stirred in countless ways. The Dharma was without efficacy and could not protect even itself, let alone the palaces of emperors, the mansions of nobles, and the bustling great markets, most of which had become ruins. The author had boundless lamentation in his heart and immense boldness in his writing.

Of course, this book can be read as a single travelogue novel, but at the same time we must recognize that within this one long novel are contained countless short stories and miscellaneous tales. This is because each recorded temple has its own history or story, and some temples also have myths or strange tales connected to them. Most of these can be read independently, one by one, as novels of the type found in the Records of Searching for Spirits, Records of Strange Phenomena, and New Tales of the World from the Wei and Jin periods. This work is a product that inherited and developed from this type of fiction. The Taiping Guangji, a Song dynasty classified compilation of fiction, copied quite a few of these tales, but there is no need to cite examples here. What matters most is that, in the intermediate period between the development of this type of fiction and the Tang-Song tales of the marvelous, it fulfilled the historical task of that period. That is to say, in the progression of this type of fiction from an early stage to an advanced stage, it completed the task of the intermediate stage of development. If we do not read the Record of Monasteries, it is very difficult to understand why Chinese fiction history suddenly leaped from works like the Wei-Jin Records of Searching for Spirits, Records of Strange Phenomena, and New Tales of the World to the Tang-Song tales of the marvelous. It is as hard to understand as an animal or living thing jumping from infancy to maturity without going through a period of growth. Here, then, I will excerpt several such tales from the Record of Monasteries as examples to prove my point. In volume two of this book, under the entry on Chongzhen Temple, there is the tale of Hui Ning Returning to Life (the title is added by the author of this text; the same applies below):

A monk named Huining from Chongzhen Temple died, and seven days later he came back to life. He had been examined by King Yama, who released him because of a mix-up with names.

Huining described what happened in the past: there were five monks who studied together. One monk was Zhisheng of Baoming Temple, who practiced seated meditation and ascetic practices, and was said to have ascended to heaven. One monk was Daopin of Banruo Temple, who was said to have also ascended to heaven by reciting the Four Nirvana Sutras. One monk was Tanmocui of Rongjue Temple, who lectured on the Nirvana Sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra and led a following of a thousand people. King Yama said: "Those who lecture on scriptures harbor ideas of self and other, and use arrogance to override others. This is the crudest conduct among monks. Now I will test only seated meditation and scripture recitation; I do not ask about scripture lecturing." That Tanmocui said, "Since I first established myself in the path, I have only loved lecturing on scriptures; I truly am not familiar with reciting them." King Yama ordered him handed over to the officials. Immediately ten attendants in blue robes escorted Tanmocui toward the northwest gate, where the buildings were all black, and it did not seem to be a good place. One monk was Daohong of Chanlin Temple, who said of himself: "I taught and converted the four assemblies of donors, commissioned the creation of all the scriptures, and made ten statues of elephants among the people." King Yama said: "The essence of being a monk is that one must gather the mind and guard the path, with the aim set on meditation and recitation, not involving oneself in worldly affairs, and not engaging in conditioned actions. Although you commissioned scriptures and images, your real aim was to obtain people's wealth. Once you obtained others' goods, a greedy mind arose. Since you harbored a greedy mind, this means the three poisons were not eliminated, and you were fully endowed with afflictions." He was also handed over to the officials. He was sent with Tanmocui through the same black gate. One monk was Baoming of Lingjue Temple, who said of himself: "Before leaving home life, I once served as governor of Longxi. When Lingjue Temple was completed, I abandoned office and entered the path. Although I did not practice meditation or recitation, I did not neglect bowing." King Yama said: "On the days when you were governor, you twisted justice and perverted the law, seized the people's wealth, and used it to build this temple under false pretenses. It was not by your own effort. Why trouble yourself to speak of this?" He was also handed over to the officials. The attendants in blue robes escorted him into the black gate. When the empress dowager heard of this, she sent the Yellow Gate Attendant Xu Hui to investigate Baoming Temple according to what Huining had said. East of the city there was Baoming Temple; inside the city there was Banruo Temple; west of the city there were three temples, Rongjue, Chanlin, and Lingjue. When inquiries were made about Zhisheng, Daopin, Tanmocui, Daohong, Baoming, and the others, all of them had indeed existed. It was discussed and said: "After people die, there are offenses and blessings." So one hundred monks who practiced seated meditation were requested to remain constantly in the palace to be supported. An edict was issued: "Do not allow carrying scriptures and images along the roads to beg. If one has private wealth and wishes to commission scriptures and images, that is permitted as one pleases."

Ning also entered White Deer Mountain, where he lived in seclusion and cultivated the Way.

From then on, the monks in the capital all devoted themselves to meditation and chanting, and no longer concerned themselves with lecturing on the scriptures.

This is a novel about Buddhist mythology. Its central theme reflects the fact that Buddhism in the Northern Dynasties emphasized meditation, chanting, and ascetic practices, unlike Buddhism in the Southern Dynasties, which favored lecturing on sutras and discussing doctrine. Although the Northern Dynasties permitted the making of sutras, images, and Buddhist temples, they did not allow begging for alms along the road or accepting others' wealth and possessions. In Volume Three of this book, under the entry for Datong Temple, there is a story about the god of the Luo River:

In the early years of the Xiaochang era, bands of rebels invaded from all directions, and the provinces and commanderies lost their strongholds. The imperial court set up recruitment standards north of the imperial hall: those who joined the military were appointed General of Vast Aides, Lieutenant General, or Subordinate General. At that time, the armored soldiers were called the "Bright Hall Squad."

At that time there was a Tiger Guard soldier named Luo Ziyuan, who said he was from Luoyang. In the earlier Xiaochang years he had been stationed at Pengcheng. A man in his same camp, Fan Yuanbao, got leave to return to the capital, so Ziyuan gave him a letter and asked him to deliver it to his family, saying: "My house is south of the Lingtai, near the Luo River. When you get there, my family will come out to see you on their own."

Yuanbao did as he was told and traveled to the south of Lingtai. There was no household anywhere to ask for directions. He lingered, uncertain, about to leave, when suddenly an old man appeared and asked, "Where have you come from, and why are you wandering here so anxiously?" Yuanbao told him everything. The old man said, "That is my son." He took the letter and led Yuanbao inside. There Yuanbao saw lofty halls and pavilions, spacious and grand, with beautiful buildings. After they were seated, the old man ordered a maidservant to bring wine. In a moment, he saw a maidservant pass by carrying a dead young child in her arms. At first Yuanbao found this very strange. Soon the wine arrived, deep red in color, with an unusually fragrant and delicious taste. A rare feast was also laid out, with delicacies from both land and sea. When he had finished drinking, he took his leave to return. The old man escorted Yuanbao out and said, "It will be hard to meet again!" Yuanbao felt this as sorrowful regret, and their parting was most affectionate.

The old man went back in, and Yuanbao could no longer see his gate or alley—only a high bank facing the water, with green waves flowing east. He saw only a young boy, about fifteen years old, newly drowned, with blood coming from his nose. Then he realized that the wine he had drunk was the boy's blood. So he returned to Pengcheng, and Ziyuan was already gone. Yuanbao and Ziyuan had garrisoned together for three years, never knowing that he was the god of the Luo River.

This is also a story of a mythical nature. The deity of the Luo River was originally a ghost that craved human blood, so it is no wonder it also took part in the bloody massacres carried out by the Northern Wei ruling class to suppress the people's uprisings.

Also, in the entry on Bodhi Temple: Cui Han of Wei — the Bodhi Temple was built by a Central Asian monk, and it stands in Muyi Ward. The monk Daduo dug open a tomb to take bricks and found a person, whom he presented to the court. At that time, the Empress Dowager and Emperor Ming were in the Huadin Hall of Hualin Garden, and they regarded the matter as an uncanny anomaly. They asked Huangmen Shilang Xu He, "Since ancient times, has there ever been anything like this?" Xu He said, "In the past, during the Wei era, a tomb was dug open and the family slave of Fan Mingyou, son-in-law of Huo Guang, was found; he spoke of the depositions and enthronements of the Han court, and it matched the historical records. This is hardly remarkable."

Later, he ordered He to ask the man his name, how many years he had been dead, and what he ate. The dead man said: "Your servant's surname is Cui, given name Han, courtesy name Zihong, a native of Anping in Boling. My father's name was Chang, my mother's surname was Wei, and our home was in Fucai Lane west of the city. I was fifteen when I died, and now I am twenty-seven—I have been in the underworld for twelve years. I always seem to be lying drunk, with nothing to eat. Sometimes I wander about, and if I happen to come upon food, it is like being in a dream—I cannot quite tell what it is."

Later, he sent his attendant Zhang Xiuxie to Zhuncaifu Village to visit Han's parents. There he found Cui Chang and his wife, Lady Wei. Xiuxie asked Chang, "Did you have a son who died?" Chang said, "I had a son named Han, who died at age fifteen." Xiuxie said, "He was dug up by someone and has now come back to life. He is in Hualin Garden. My master sent me to inquire." When Chang heard this, he was shocked and frightened, and said, "I truly have no such son. What I said before was a mistake." Xiuxie returned and reported everything exactly as it had happened.

Later, he sent someone to escort Han back home. When Chang heard that Han had arrived, he lit a fire at the gate. Holding a knife, while Lady Wei held a peach branch, he said, "You need not come here! I am not your father, and you are not my son. Leave quickly, and you may escape harm!"

Hán then gave it all up and wandered to the capital, often sleeping under the temple gate. The Prince of Runan gave him a set of yellow robes. Han was by nature afraid of the sun and did not dare look up at it. He was also afraid of water, fire, and weapons of war. He would often run along the main roads, and when he grew tired he would stop; he never walked slowly. People of the time still called him a ghost.

In the northern Fengzhong ward of the great market in Luoyang, most of the people in the ward sold goods for funerals and burials, as well as coffins. Han told them, "Make coffins from cypress wood, and do not use mulberry wood for the inner frames." When people asked him why, Han said, "In the underworld, I saw people conscripting ghost soldiers. One ghost protested, saying he was in a cypress coffin and should be exempt. The officer in charge of the soldiers said, 'Even if your coffin is cypress, its inner frame is mulberry.' So he was not exempted." When the capital heard this, the price of cypress wood soared. People suspected that the coffin sellers had bribed Han to make such remarks.

The above three examples all belong to the category of tales about searching out spirits and recording strange phenomena. The authors wrote them with sources and evidence, as if they were truly factual. A modern scholar, Mr. Zhou, put it well in his Brief History of Chinese Fiction: "China originally believed in shamanism. From the Qin and Han dynasties onward, tales of immortals flourished, and by the late Han, shamanistic practices grew even more widespread, while the way of ghosts became increasingly fervent. Around this time, Lesser Vehicle Buddhism also entered China and gradually spread. All of these tended to glorify ghosts and spirits and promote the miraculous, which is why from the Jin to the Sui dynasty there were especially many books of ghosts and spirits and strange occurrences. Some of these books came from literati, and some from religious followers. Though the works of literati were not like those of the Buddhists and Daoists, who aimed to glorify their own teachings, neither did they intentionally write fiction. For at that time, people believed that although the visible and invisible realms were different paths, humans and ghosts both truly existed; thus in narrating strange events, they saw no difference between truth and falsehood compared to recording ordinary human affairs." Below are two more examples. In Volume Three of this book, under the entry for Baode Temple, there is an account about Wang Su:

East of Quanxue Lane is Yanxian Lane, where the Zhengjue Temple stands, founded by the Minister of State Wang Su. Wang Su, courtesy name Gongyi, was a man of Langya and the son of Huan, the Inspector of Yongzhou under the usurping Qi. He was a widely learned man of broad understanding, gifted in eloquence and elegant in expression, and served as Secretary of the Palace Library under Qi. In the eighteenth year of Taihe, he turned his back on the rebellious and came over in allegiance. At that time, Emperor Gaozu had newly built the city of Luoyi, and much was being established and regulated. Wang Su was deeply versed in former affairs and proved of great help; Emperor Gaozu greatly valued him and often called him Master Wang. The name of Yanxian was given because of Wang Su's establishment of it.

While Su was in Jiangnan, he took a woman of the Xie family as his wife. When he later arrived at the capital, he married a princess. Xie composed a five-character poem and sent it to him. Her poem read: "I was once a silkworm on the tray; now I am thread upon the loom. Having found your path, you follow what is better—do you still remember the time when we were tangled together?" The princess answered Xie on Su's behalf: "The needle is the thing that threads the line; in its eye it always holds the thread. When it gets new silk, it sews and goes on—how could it patch the old!" Su looked deeply ashamed, and so he built the Zhengjue Temple as a place for her to rest.

Su Yi's father had suffered disaster through no fault of his own, and he constantly harbored the intention of avenging him against Chu, like Wu Zixu did. He humbled himself, wore plain clothes, and refrained from listening to music. People of his time praised him for this.

At first, when Xiao first entered the state, he did not eat mutton or dairy drinks and similar foods, but often ate crucian carp soup with rice and drank tea when thirsty. The scholars in the capital said that Xiao could drink a full dou in one sitting and nicknamed him "the leaking vessel."

Years later, Su was at a palace gathering with Emperor Gaozu, where he ate a great deal of mutton and drank much yogurt porridge. Gaozu found this strange and asked Su, "These are the flavors of your native China. How does mutton compare to fish soup? How does tea compare to yogurt?" Su replied, "Mutton is the finest of land creatures, fish is the chief of water creatures. What people prefer differs, and each is considered a delicacy. In terms of flavor, there is truly a difference in quality. Mutton is like the great states of Qi and Lu; fish is like the small states of Zhu and Ju. Only tea is no match—it is like a servant to yogurt." Gaozu laughed heartily, then raised his cup and said, "Three threes horizontal, two twos vertical—whoever can discern it, I will award the golden chalice." Li Biao, the Assistant Imperial Censor, said, "An old woman selling wine pours from a jar into a crock; a butcher cuts meat to match the scale." Zhen Chen, the Right Assistant Director of the Secretariat, said, "The people of Wu are skilled at swimming; a performer tosses a rope into empty space." The Prince of Pengcheng, Xie, said, "I now understand—this character is 'xi' (習)." Gaozu then awarded the golden chalice to Li Biao. The court admired Li Biao's intelligence and wisdom, and Zhen Chen's quick agreement as well.

The Prince of Pengcheng said to Su, "You don't value the great states of Qi and Lu, yet you cherish the small states of Zhu and Ju?"

Su replied, "What the people of my hometown admire, I cannot help but admire as well."

The Prince of Pengcheng said again, "When you visit me tomorrow, I will serve you the food of Zhu and Ju—and there will also be 'the slave of milk.'"

From this, tea drinking also came to be called "the slave of milk."

At that time, Liu Gao, a supervising secretary, admired Su's style and devoted himself to drinking tea. The Prince of Pengcheng said to Liu Gao, "You do not admire the eight delicacies of princes and lords, but instead enjoy the 'servant's water calamity.' There is a man by the sea who chases after foul smells, and a woman in the village who imitates a frown—speaking of you, that is exactly it." The Prince of Pengcheng's household had a Wu servant who used these words to mock him. From then on, although tea was served at banquets of the court nobility, they all felt ashamed and no longer drank it—only the remaining common folk from Jiangbiao who came far away to surrender still enjoyed it.

Later, Xiao Yan's son, the Marquis of Xifeng, Xiao Zhengde, came to surrender. At that time, Yuan Yi wanted to serve him tea, so he first asked, "How much have you suffered from the 'water calamity'?" Zhengde did not understand what Yuan Yi meant and replied, "This humble official was born in a land of rivers and lakes, and since establishing myself, I have never encountered the disaster of the Lord of the Waves." Yuan Yi and all the guests seated with him burst out laughing.

At that time, China was divided between North and South. The Southerners called the Northerners "Hu" and "Suolu" (a derogatory term meaning "captured slaves"), while the Northerners called the Southerners "Yi" and "Daoyi" (derogatory terms meaning "island barbarians"). The story quoted above already reflects the regional and racial prejudices of the people of that era. Only Emperor Xiaowen, who was deeply devoted to Sinicization, believed this was simply a matter of habit. He specially devised a character-guessing riddle as a drinking game, having his ministers guess the answer themselves, subtly hinting that they should no longer oppose Sinicization, and he did not place the blame for Sinicization on Wang Su. Similarly, in Volume Two of this book, under the entry for Jingning Temple, there is a record of a debate between Chen Qingzhi and Yang Yuanshen over whether the Southern or Northern Dynasties were the orthodox line—a fierce and fascinating debate that also shows how quickly the Xianbei people and the Han Chinese merged after the Northern Wei moved its capital to Luoyang. This too should be read as a novel. The text is too long, so I will not quote it here. Furthermore, in Volume Four, under the entry for Fayun Temple, there is a passage titled "Prince's Quarter":

West of the retired wine shop and east of the Zhangfang Canal, bordering the Luo River to the south and reaching Mang Mountain to the north, the area spanning two li from east to west and fifteen li from north to south was all called Shouqiu Village. It was where the imperial clan lived, and among the common people it was known as the Princely Quarter.

At that time, all within the four seas was peaceful and calm, and the distant lands all paid homage. Silk bindings recorded auspicious celebrations, and the jade candle harmonized the seasons. The common people were prosperous and well-off; harvests were abundant and customs joyful. Widowers and widows were never seen eating dog or pig feed, and orphans and the childless were never seen wearing clothes meant for cattle and horses. Then the imperial clansmen and princes, the consorts' relatives and princesses, commanding the wealth of mountains and seas and possessing the bounty of rivers and forests, competed in building gardens and residences, vying with one another in display. Lofty gates and abundant chambers, connecting doors and joined rooms; soaring pavilions stirred the wind, layered towers raised mist. High terraces and fragrant trees were built in every household; flowered groves and winding ponds existed in every garden. Without exception, peach and plum were green in summer, and bamboo and cypress stayed verdant through winter.

Prince Chen of Hejian was the wealthiest and most powerful of them all. He often competed with the Prince of Gaoyang, Yuan Yong, for supremacy. He built the Wenbai Hall, shaped like the Huiyin Palace, with a jade well and golden jars, using ropes woven from gold in five colors. He kept three hundred courtesans, all of them peerless beauties. Among his maidservants was one named Zhaoyun, skilled at playing the chi flute, able to perform "The Round Fan Song" and the tune "On the Ridge." When Chen served as governor of Qinzhou, the Qiang tribes rebelled and repeatedly resisted his campaigns to subdue them. Chen had Zhaoyun disguise herself as a poor old woman and beg while playing her flute. When the Qiang heard it, they all wept, saying to one another, "Why should we abandon our ancestral graves and homes to live as bandits in the mountain valleys?" And so they came forward together to surrender. The people of Qin had a saying: "A fast horse and a strong man are no match for an old woman playing the flute!"

While in Qinzhou, Chen had little to show in the way of governance. He sent envoys west to seek famous horses, reaching as far as Persia. There he obtained a thousand-li horse, named Zhuifeng Chiji, or "Red Steed That Chases the Wind." There were also more than ten horses that could run seven hundred li a day, and each of them had a name. He used silver for their troughs and gold for their halters and rings. The various princes acknowledged his wealth and extravagance.

A man from Chen said: "Shi Chong of the Jin dynasty was merely a commoner, yet he could afford pheasant-head and fox-armpit delicacies, and had eggs painted and firewood carved. How much more should our great Wei heavenly king not indulge in splendor and extravagance?" So he built the Welcome-the-Wind Pavilion in the rear garden. On its windows and doors were rows of coin-shaped gold clasps, jade phoenixes holding bells in their beaks, and golden dragons spitting out pendants. White pear and red plum trees had branches reaching into the eaves, and the singing girls on the upper floor sat and picked the fruit to eat.

Chen often gathered together his clan members and displayed all kinds of treasures: more than a hundred gold bottles and silver urns, along with an equal number of cups, stands, trays, and boxes. Besides these, there were drinking vessels including crystal bowls, agate and glass cups, and several dozen red jade goblets. The craftsmanship was marvelous, unmatched in the Central Plains, and all had come from the Western Regions. He also presented female musicians and fine horses. Then he led the princes through his storehouses, where brocade, woolen rugs, pearls, and tiny gems, along with snow-white silk and misty gauze, were piled high inside. Embroidered cloth, spun silk, patterned damask, colorful silks, Yue kudzu cloth, coins, and plain silk—these could not be counted. Chen suddenly said to Zhangwuwang Rong, "I don't regret that I never got to see Shi Chong; I regret that Shi Chong never got to see me!" Rong was by nature greedy and violent, with boundless desires. Seeing all this, he sighed in admiration and unknowingly fell ill. Returning home, he lay in bed for three days and could not rise. Jiangyangwang Ji came to visit him and asked, "Your wealth should be a match for his—why do you sigh with envy to this extent?" Rong replied, "I always heard that Gao Yang alone had more treasures than anyone, but who knew that Hejian's display would surpass it before my very eyes?" Ji laughed and said, "You want to be like Yuan Shu in Huainan, unaware that there is still a Liu Bei in the world!" Rong then jumped up, set out wine, and made merry.

At that time the country was prosperous and wealthy, and the storehouses were overflowing. Coins and silk were piled up in the corridors in the open, in amounts beyond counting. When the Empress Dowager gave the officials silk to carry away, letting each take as much as he wished, every court official left carrying as much as he could manage. Only Rong and the Marquis of Chenliu, Li Chong, carried more silk than they could bear, fell down, and injured their ankles. The Palace Attendant Cui Guang took only two bolts. The Empress Dowager asked, "Why so little, Palace Attendant?" He replied, "Your servant has two hands, and they can carry only two bolts. What I have gained is plenty!" The nobles of the court admired his integrity.

After the Battle of Heyang, the members of the Yuan clan were all but wiped out. The mansions of princes and nobles were mostly converted into temples, and in Shouqiu Village, monasteries stood in rows within sight of one another. Jetavana Monastery rose grandly, its jeweled pagoda towering high. On the eighth day of the fourth month, many of the capital's gentlemen and ladies went to Hejian Temple. When they saw the splendor of its corridors and halls, all sighed in admiration, saying that even the immortal abodes of Penglai could not surpass it. Entering its rear garden, they saw winding ditches, jagged stone steps, red lotuses rising from the pond, green duckweed floating on the water, flying bridges spanning the pavilions, and tall trees piercing the clouds. Everyone murmured in praise, thinking that even the Rabbit Garden of the King of Liang could not compare to it.

Although this book is a factual record of the princes and nobles of the Northern Wei dynasty, and the author passes no judgment on them, he often seems to deliberately expose their ugliness—and yet does so with such elegant composition and gripping effect that it has the flavor of a novel. For instance, when he describes the greedy, violent, and debauched lives of the princes here, he relies on a single most typical setting, the Wangzi Quarter, to sketch out one or two of the most typical figures. It is both incisive and generalizing—highly skilled technique. Before the Tang and Song tales of emperors, empresses, and their left-behind affairs, this deserves attention. The book records real human affairs, such as the hermit Zhao Yi(Volume Two) and the flute player Tian Sengchao(Volume Four)—there are many such examples. This surely came about by following the path of the *New Account of Tales of the World* in recording social customs and human words and deeds. In the postscript to this book quoted above, Mao Jin already compared figures from the *New Account of Tales of the World* such as Wei Jie and Wang Yan to the author's character and the style of his writing.

In short, when we read this book, it feels like reading a novel—more pleasurable than reading the miscellaneous and short works from the Wei and Jin dynasties onward that recount spirits and strange tales with only rough outlines, and more pleasurable than reading collections of anecdotes about historical figures like A New Account of Tales of the World. I think this is because the book has a system, containing both history and literature; it not only talks about gods and strange things, hunting for curiosities and gathering forgotten scraps, but also narrates with graceful and evocative turns, in rich, elegant, and refined language, full of novelistic interest. By the time of the Tang dynasty romances, most were self-consciously created as novels, "deliberately seeking the strange" and "exhausting imaginary language," so the narration became more intricate and the language more unrestrained. From this, we can see the historical evolution of Chinese fiction from the Wei and Jin, through the Northern and Southern dynasties, all the way to the Tang and Song. Finally, we believe it must be pointed out that the Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang deserves an important place in the history of Chinese fiction alone. As for the many myths, strange tales, and folk sayings and proverbs recorded in this book, most are oral folk creations of the time and place, tied to specific events and people and carrying real-world significance; it also touches on popular folk performances and music. The author, Yang Xuanzhi, was a literary figure who delved deeply into social life, paid attention to folk arts, and drew from the wellspring of creation—this is well worth our study, and should also draw the attention of researchers in folk literature.

The editorial conventions and methods of arrangement are explained in detail in the preface, so I will not go into them again here; this note is appended for clarification.